NEW YORK — Ryan Weathers kept walking off the mound Sunday to fight back his own stomach, then kept coming back to pitch through it.
The left-hander threw up several times during the game as he tried to gut out the lingering effects of the food poisoning that had swept through the clubhouse days earlier.
The sight put a spotlight on a question the Yankees had mostly kept quiet: how sick were their players, and why was a visibly ill starter still being sent out to work through it?
Weathers lasted just four-plus innings in a 6-1 loss to the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium, the latest stumble in a brutal stretch for the Yankees.
The moment matters because it lands at the worst possible time for a short-handed team. The Yankees are already leaning hard on a thin pitching staff, and watching a starter labor while battling illness raised fresh concerns about how New York is managing player health during a critical run of games.
A starter pitching through sickness
Weathers had felt it coming for days. The illness hit several players in the Yankees clubhouse earlier in the week, and while most seemed to move past it quickly, the 26-year-old could not shake the aftereffects.
His previous outing had already been cut short. In that start, he recorded just five outs while dealing with the same stomach trouble.
On Sunday, the results were not much better. Weathers was charged with four earned runs and pushed runners into scoring position in all but one of the innings he pitched.
A leadoff double by Austin Martin set the tone early and helped Minnesota grab a 1-0 lead. Weathers was eventually pulled in the fifth after hitting Luke Keaschall and walking Martin.
He climbed to 88 pitches before his day ended. One wild pitch moved Royce Lewis to second, and Lewis scored soon after on a Brooks Lee single to left.
The other Ryan, Twins’ Joe, kept the Yankees scoreless until the seventh with just three hits and one walk. It was a first for a MInnesota pitcher.
Weathers and Boone address the illness
After the game, Weathers did not hide what he had been fighting. He confirmed he had been sick on the mound while trying to give his team innings.
Weathers said he “threw up a few times during the game, just trying to get it out.”
The lefty made clear his frustration was about the outcome, not the illness. He wanted to keep the Yankees in the game and could not.
“I wanna do well for the team and try to win the ballgame,” Weathers said. “And it just didn’t happen today.”
Yankees manager Aaron Boone praised his starter for taking the ball despite feeling awful, pointing to the quality of his stuff even in a losing effort.
“Credit to him, under the weather today, and still went out there and battled,” Boone said.
Boone also singled out one pitch that stood out despite the rough line. He framed the changeup as a genuine bright spot.
“I thought his stuff was really good, as good a change-up as I’ve seen from him, a ton of swing-and-miss with that pitch,” Boone said.
A slide that runs deeper than one start
The numbers show a pitcher trending the wrong way even before the illness. Weathers carried a 3.00 ERA on May 11 after a strong outing against the Orioles. That mark has since climbed to 4.29.
On the season, the Yankees left-hander owns a 4.29 ERA with 104 strikeouts and 27 walks across 92 1/3 innings over 17 starts. He did manage six strikeouts Sunday, but the swings and misses were not enough to offset the traffic on the bases.
This is Weathers’ first year in New York. He was acquired from the Miami Marlins in January in exchange for four minor leaguers, and originally went seventh overall to the San Diego Padres in the 2018 draft.
Workload is another looming issue for the Yankees. Weathers is on pace to blow past his career high of 94 2/3 innings, set as a rookie in San Diego, which adds strain for a pitcher already searching for consistency.
Weathers is expected to pitch again later in the Tampa Bay series or against the Nationals, neither an easy landing spot for a starter still trying to shake an illness and find his form. For now, the Yankees are left explaining why a sick pitcher was on the mound at all, and hoping the bug that hit their clubhouse is finally behind them.
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